13. Another turnaround

We wash all the towels and dressing gowns in-house, and do a mid-week towel change. Consequently the guests hardly get a look-in to use the washing machine and dryer as they are in perpetual motion. This does mean that these gadgets have to work efficiently and sometimes technology facilitates all sorts of fancy sensors and systems, which just provides more opportunities for things to go wrong. 24 towels for mid-week change was too much for this dryer which refused to operate and just kept beeping at me with annoying indignation. On Thursday morning the company owner turned up to demonstrate how to deconstruct the filters and condenser to clean (and dry in the sunshine!) to maintain clear flow and cleanliness. Perhaps 4 weeks late? It is a right performance, and then he told me that needed to do that after each cycle – not a chance – no time. He did print the manuals for me and after a quick peruse I came across the symbols for filters or condensers needing clearing, so will be guided by those in future (having not seen them previously.)
Thursday afternoon we received a message to say that our colleagues would be dropping off the shopping. They only had to do the 5 chalet shops, no guest lists this week, but I took the opportunity to go and meet them for a very welcome coffee and cake. We were a little surprised for this to be happening on a Thursday, as guests are able to send in shopping lists up until the end of Thursday so there could have been another shop to do on Friday. We’ll see how that works out next week.

On Friday morning I was met with silence when I entered the Loft to do the daily house-keeping, then bodies began to emerge from the depths of darkened bedrooms. Their penultimate evening is party night so they don’t travel with a hangover. (It was just a shame they hadn’t said something and given me the morning off.) I tried to work around the dazed beings but they weren’t washed and dressed so were in and out of bedrooms. They grazed on breakfast and occupied the kitchen and dining area in rotation so I couldn’t do anything there either. With mounting frustration with the dryer, which continued to refuse to work, I surrendered and went down to Mollard to give Roger a hand. I had just brought the vacuum upstairs when I received a call to say that one of the drivers was on his way to pick up the wet towels from Loft to take to launderette to dry, so I legged it back to Loft. There were no big bags to take towels in the van and I knew I didn’t have any in the 3rd floor apartment so we went in via the basement store. I put the key in the lock of our essential storage space where we keep the excess for both chalets along with the food shopping. It wouldn’t turn. The lock wouldn’t budge at all. I tried several times then asked Hordy to have a go and felt some degree of satisfaction when he couldn’t open it either, but this was tempered by the fact that I needed to be able to get in to retrieve the shopping for both chalet changeovers, not to mention collect toilet rolls and toiletries. Hordy decided to implement Kiwi technology and gave the door a good kick. He tried the key again. It opened.

The Loft guests were due to depart at 9.45am, on Saturday although one of the adults suggested that they might leave later when I confirmed the departure time on Friday morning. I let her know, straight away, that they’d have to be out by 10am anyway as we needed to turn the place around for the incoming guests, regardless of them being the owner’s party. I quickly added that they’d be able to leave their bags if leaving later, trying to be accommodating. I heard nothing about an alteration in timings and we had to go to Mollard at 9.30 for their daily clean and couldn’t go there any earlier so wouldn’t be back at Loft until 10.30 anyway. However, the lovely guys at Mollard told Roger that they’d quite like a lie in on Saturday and he didn’t need to go. This meant that we could start on Loft as soon as those guys left.

Hoping that they hadn’t been able to delay their departure, I checked with transport. Changeover days utilise the art of logistical planning when trying to get all guests to and from a variety of airports with a limited number of vans and drivers, so I thought it unlikely that times could be changed at a short-notice whim. They couldn’t, and in fact, the group had to leave 15 minutes earlier anyway. This helped us immensely. We had an extra hour for this changeover and really didn’t want to have to be helped again.